SSD Swap gone wrong

Alright, hope i'm In the right place, if not, my apologies. So I just bought a New MBP (non retina) and the first thing I did was put my ssd from my old macbook in. This is where I started having problems. on my old system, I never had any issues running this ssd, but for some reason in the mbp it stutters and lags to the point it's unusable. I have reinstalled osx many times now, and have zero-ed out the drive. Nothing seems to change the performance. I am led to believe this is now a trim issue. they only thing I am getting caught up on, however, is why did it work fine in the old macbook without any trim support?

It is the same in safe mode, and patching for trim support hasn't seemed to make any difference... i'm half temped to go back to the old macbook. It just doesn't like the pro. something as simple as scanning the drive with Grand Perspective brings the entire system to a Halt. I don't believe the drive is failing, however that may be a possibility I have to consider. when all other options are exhausted, whatever remains, however improbable must be it.

It is the same in safe mode, and patching for trim support hasn't seemed to make any difference... i'm half temped to go back to the old macbook. It just doesn't like the pro

Click to expand...

What model Crucial and firmware level are you on? Mine is the M500 120GB but is still on MU02 firmware as I get SATA3 (6G) negotiated link even in the optical bay - which is quite rare to get working, so I have not risked upgrading to MU03 firmware as it may bring no benefit.

As I am on Yosemite I don't have Trim enabled as I don't want to run kext unsigned but I haven't noticed any change in perceived performance or speed test as run by BlackMagic....but none of this points to anything I can help you with...

thats where it gets a little tricky, it is a C300-MTFDDAA128MAG. for some reason my mac identifies it incorrectly as an intel drive. this may have to do with the fact it's not a retail drive but rather a prototype c300 it is identical to the Crucial RealSSD C300 1.8-inch SSD. unfortunately I can't specifically say where I obtained it, due to certain circumstances. I know that limits how much you can help me, however I have attached a text file that should contain some info, as well as a google search of the Model# may provide more info on it's origins. you do bring up another interesting point though, and this will hopefully shed some light. in my old macbook I ran the ssd in the optical bay and a 1tb in the main bay, i only ever achieve 3 gigabit link speed however.

in the macbook pro I am just running the ssd in the main bay and haven't removed the optical drive for warranty reasons. so that unfortunately isn't an option. drivedx reports no problems whatsoever. so I am back to square 1.

First, never zero an SSD. SSDs are self correcting. By zeroing the SSD you may have marked every block on the unit as needing a reset. It will vary from SSD to SSD since the firmware and how they handle bad blocks differs from unit to unit. Have you reset the NVRAM and done an SMC reset?

Second, it's not uncommon for our best friends, the MDS process (Spotlight and Time Machine indexing) as well as IconServicesAgent to kick off and bottleneck a system for a few hours. It depends on the OS you're running. The SSD will be seen as a new drive because the UUID of the drive wasn't anything in the system before.

Third. Possibly a damaged cable. SATA cables are notoriously fragile. The only product that can check them properly in real time is Scannerz (http://scsc-online.com/Scannerz.html). The problem with SMART utilities like DriveDX is that if there was an intermittent disconnect it will log those errors and never clear them, even if it was a one time event. You'll never really know what the status of the drive is.

My advice may sound crazy, but here it is:

1. Assuming the resets do nothing, go to system preferences and set the system to never sleep, and NOT to put the drive to sleep when possible.

2. Leave the system on and don't touch it for about an hour or two.

If the drives firmware needs to clear blocks it will do so. If MDS and/or IconServicesAgent need to do their thing, they will do so. If after an hour or two the system has miraculously come back to life then those (possibly a combination of all of them) were the likely causes.

3. If it's still slow and you have an external enclosure, you could put the SSD into that and see if it's still slow. If it's still slow the SSD may be damaged. If it's not slow, then it points most likely at a bad SATA cable. Keep in mind that an SSD in an external enclosure will be limited by the data rate of the port, so if you put it in a USB port, the most you'll get out of it will be USB data rates.

A final possibility may be a firmware conflict between the SSD and the system. Since Mountain Lion, Apple has had problems doing a decent job maintaining compatibility with a lot of peripherals. Most of it's been USB and Firewire related, but I wouldn't be shocked if a firmware conflict existed with your drive as well. Not likely, but possible.

It may help you to understand a little bit about the ssd's background, I can't elaborate much but it's initial use was not in a home computer, as I said previously, it is a prototype that was used for testing a new controller, a market version was later released that was virtually Identical. this drive was written to and powered up non-stop for over a year. literally all it did was have zero's written to it, then ones, then zeros.... over and over and over. the drive is still believed to be in good condition, I have been using it in a old mac for several months now, but the only variables that have seemed to have changed is the macbook it's self and the bay connection. It is quite possible that it is beginning to fail. however the issues only became apparent after the switch was made. therefore I still believe it to be in good health, and something else is going on. it has had plenty of time to idle and correct it's self. it is either simply a failing drive or the enclosure. and yes the SMC and PRAM have been reset several times to no avail. that was my first try.

If that was some type of prototype drive, I'd have to say all bets are off. It sounds like they were trying to test the flash storage for longevity, which means the write cycle count is probably high. I'd also guess that it might be not be fully compatible with the newer unit because it might have been developed to do tests, not necessarily meet general usage standards.

The cable could still be a problem, and I think some of the other tests, like putting it into an external enclosure or swapping out SATA cables (if possible) might be worth a shot.

At this point, all I can say is "Good luck." I hope it works out for you one way or another.

Op even with a high usage count ssd's do not fail in the same way spinning disks do. As blocks fail the drive marks them and in turn the drives size shrinks. So if it was fine then after moving it it's not then something else is wrong.

well, that's exactly what was going on, it was a longevity test. so basically, what could have changed when switching to the new mac. avoiding the obvious changes, what things specifically changed that could affect the performance?

well, that's exactly what was going on, it was a longevity test. so basically, what could have changed when switching to the new mac. avoiding the obvious changes, what things specifically changed that could affect the performance?

Click to expand...

Its talking to a different controller but you cant really say whether the drive was engineered to work to the usual standards, if you put it back in the old mac does it run normally?

As far as I know, its controller is the same one that was put into production, however its possible some changes were made in between. This drive was intended for the consumer market for use in a personal computer. As far as putting it in the old mac it seems to do fine, but its a little bit of an unfair comparison since its a 3 gigabit connection.

Gav2K is right if it was failing due to too many memory cells being marked unusable the same would happen with both units.

When someone's doing prototype work to do that sort of testing (flash memory longevity, I assume) they're not going to care about compatibility, they'll just want to get the thing running. After all, if they troubleshot the controller and firmware to make it perfect and compatible with everything, what good would it be with bad flash. They can worry about compatibility later. Most firmware updates are often bug fixes that address compatibility issues.

My opinion would be to put it back in the original unit and just enjoy it for as long as it runs.

Indeed, I agree that compatibility was not it's purpose, I just wanted to see what I could get out of it as opposed to having it trashed. My main question was why did it seem to work so well on the old macbook and not the new, was I missing something simple? i'm afraid it's simply a compatibility issue as you have suggested. I ordered a new mx100 last night. thanks for everyone's help in trying to figure this out. I guess somethings just don't work, but thats what makes life fun.

Ok... I've recently been finding an issue with the SATA cables in these MBP 13" models. This hasn't been a problem until I upgraded some systems and HDs and it seems to become unstable. There is actually a known problem with these models about the SATA cables.

Basically, it masquerades as HD problems... but as soon as I replace the cable ($50 something from Apple or $30 from ebay), these issues go away.

I can't explain it... but it happened with upgrade of HD AND with upgrade to Yosemite. Downgrading or going back to original HD never fixed it.

I know it sounds crazy obscure, but I swear... I recently came across THREE different units and this was the only solution.

That's not "crazy obscure" at all. Not one bit. I do beta testing for a product called Scannerz, and they specifically put interface testing into their product because there were so many problems with SATA cables. I suspect there were some quality control issues with some of the cables between roughly 2009 and 2012, and the cables on laptops are notoriously fragile anyway.

A SATA cable isn't like a flat ribbon cable that used to be used in IDE drives. They're a set of twisted pairs that actually have a radio frequency impedance like an antenna or coax connection. If any of the twists get messed up, the cable can become problematic. The problem with some of the problematic cables was that the insulation was too thin and they'd actually start more or less shorting to ground. Some of Apple's SSDs ship with their own cables, and if the drive gets replaced, you're supposed to replace the cable too. I know that occurred with some of the MacBook Air's but I can't swear it applies to all models.

@droidguy:

Like I said in the previous post, I do beta testing on Scannerz. Scannerz does low level hardware access and it's not uncommon for them to have to develop a new release every time a new version of OS X comes out. The same applies to drive and SSD makers. I guess that's why firmware updates to drives and SSDs are not that uncommon.

A lot of people initially had problems with external drives with the initial releases of both Mountain Lion and Mavericks, and Yosemite seems to have so many bugs I don't even know where to start (see the reviews on the App Store.) A lot of them, at least with Mountain Lion and Mavericks seem to have been fixed, but it took Apple a few releases to get to them.

Like I said before, just use your SSD where you can, be sure and keep good backups, and be happy that you have it. That's my opinion - enjoy!

Well, it's been a little while now, and I had decided to toss a mx100 in and I couldn't be happier, it runs flawlessly. so now my only thought is that the old ssd just wasn't up to the task of running at a 6 gigabit connection. I am still not 100% why, but all is well, and I can put it in the old macbook where it seems to be happy. thanks everyone for all your help, it is greatly appreciated.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.